Once upon a time in Riften City
by Norroen Dyrd
Summary: Tamriel is not what it used to be hundreds of years ago. But one young woman thinks she can catch passing glimpses of the past. Are these just hallucinations - or is the world really about to change?
1. LAVINIA

In the end, it was Marcus who made the announcement, in his usual pompous way, wasting his slightly wheezy (all those years of motionless staring at a computer screen were beginning to take their toll), cigarette-scented breath on ever so many needlessly complicated words, which all really amounted to one simple message: 'Your mother, my wife, is finally pregnant with my child'. It might seem surprising to an outsider that she hadn't told me herself - but I really hadn't expected her to do it. Ever since her second marriage - a couple of years after Father's death; I must have been sixteen at the time - she had been avoiding me to an almost ridiculous extent, and I can't say I blamed her. An awkward, morosely silent teenage female version of your recently deceased husband is hardly a pleasant thing to have in a newly created household. Especially if the resemblance goes beyond mere appearance... But I digress.

So, yes, it was Marcus who made the announcement. After he did, there was a long, strained pause - of the kind that always makes me feel as if I'd choked on something - which was succeeded, in several slow-trickling minutes, by my small, rather emotionless 'Oh'. Because, really, what was I supposed to do - dance for joy? But there were millions of pregnant women all over the world, and nothing whatsoever singled my mother out of their number...

Since 'Oh' is the sort of remark that tends to leave you with nothing to add on the current subject, Marcus, the sly diplomat that he was, decided to change it.

'So, uh,' he said, in a most deliberately casual way, intertwining his long bony fingers like some ghastly macramé, 'What's going on with your life at the moment?'

I shrugged, 'Nothing'.

It was one of those rare instances during my conversations with Marcus when I was being perfectly truthful. There can hardly be anything going on with your life when you have none.

'I thought you were studying... something...' Poor thing, he was trying so hard not to sound disdainful - but he still did. Bookworms were an alien species for him - though, frankly, I was not even that much of a bookworm; my father had been one, probably the last of his kind.

'Ancient history,' I prompted. 'But they closed down the programme. I should have been getting my Master's this year... but instead I am... nowhere.'

Marcus snorted, about to mount his - and Mother's - hobby horse. 'That was the best thing the government did in years,' he said (almost) vehemently. 'Who needs ancient history? A complete waste of time and money; distracts young kids like you - and Sergius, in his day (Sergius was my father's name; Marcus had known him for quite some time before he died) - from making a real contribution to society, and causes... _problems'._

I bit into my lower lip. How very step-fatherly of Marcus to bring it up. I knew exactly what kind of problems he was hinting at. My problems. What our family therapist - whom Marcus insisted on dragging me to once a month, 'for my own good' - called 'persistent hallucinations'. I saw faces. Faces in the crowd, like bright flashes in the heaving waves of grey - faces that did not belong there, that belonged nowhere at all. High cheekbones, sharp features, unnatural skin tones - yellowish-gold, dark-grey, green, - gleaming, gem-like eyes - sapphires, rubies, amber... And of course, large, pointed ears. Elves. Almost every time I walked down busy a street, my mind wandering in a direction completely different from that of my feet, or travelled in the packed subway, gasping for breath in the broiling soup of human bodies, or shifted listlessly in the back seat of our family car, surveying the other drivers stuck with us in a traffic jam - almost every time I would suddenly freeze, my hands limp and sticky with cold sweat, my heart pounding, and gape at a single dream-like face, a lone elf among countless humans. They were so real, those faces - but they were not. They could not be. Every single elf... no, every single _mer _- Orcs too, and also a great number of Bretons, and most likely Khajiit too, those of them who would not later mysteriously degrade into common housecats - had been killed by vengeful humans after The Last World War and the fall of the Second Aldmeri Dominion, an event which marked the end of the Old Days, the decay of magic and the rise of humankind to new heights of progress. Those faces were part of the past, past long gone, an unfamiliar world full of strange shadows that should best be left unstirred. That was why they stopped teaching ancient history. That was why they were gradually shutting down museum after museum, priceless relics of the past disappearing into nowhere. That was why my father, a dedicated archeologist, had almost been strangled in the snake-like coils of red tape while trying to start a dig in what once had been known as Summerset Isle. And that was why I kept lying to Marcus and our therapist when they asked me if I still saw the faces. I had been awfully indiscreet in the past - first, as a child, I would innocently tell the grown-ups about the things I saw; then, as a teenager, I would desperately try to prove that the faces were really there... but now I knew better. The faces were part of the past - and they were also part of my heart, a locked-up place where I would never let anyone in, not anyone who, like Marcus, had shameless, prying eyes and no more soul than a milk carton. The faces were part of me, they were my secret treasure, and so I lied about my 'hallucinations' having stopped so that Marcus and the likes of him would leave me alone and let me savour them in peace.

And this time, I lied yet again, 'Oh, you know that was long ago. Stress and all that. I feel much better now'.

The corners of Marcus's mouth twitched in what he must have believed to be a smile of approval. 'In any case,' he went on, eyeing me closely from beneath his eyebrows, 'Now that you are _not _studying - what do you expect to do with yourself? At your age, it's rather, uh, unconventional to rely on your parents' support all the time...' I had to restrain myself from rolling up my eyes; a lot of support Marcus and Mother had been giving me. 'And besides, soon you will not be the only child... It's time you went out there into the great wide world and started looking out for yourself, don't you think?'

My heart sank. After a brief exchange of forced smiles, I asked, quietly, gazing down at my fingernails (short, squarish and undyed), 'What do you have in mind?'

'There is a vacancy open in one of the BBI offices that you could easily secure for you,' Marcus elaborated generously. 'About the only skills required are a good knowledge of literal Cyrodiilic and the ability to operate a computer without setting it on fire,' from the way he strained his voice, I realized that he was trying to make a sort of genial, friendly joke. 'The post is not too significant, of course - but it will get you started on the way out of the dreamworld and into present-day reality'.

I mulled his words over for some time and, for want of anything else to do, decided to accept the offer.


	2. LAVINIA: Continued

I had figured that that world would suck me in, sooner or later. The dreary, perfectly organized world where countless Marcuses move like cogs and wheels of a gigantic mechanism with its core centered inside the tall, silvery tower that looms over Riften City's financial centre and is an obligatory feature of every single postcard - the headquarters of BBI, Black-Briar Industries. Fortunately for me, for I don't think I would ever bring myself to enter that dazzling bulk of metal and glass that each day consumed hundreds of people and then spat them out again, like some kind of prehistoric monster - a Swamp Leviathan, perhaps, one of those that used to dwell in the now dried-out marshes of Argonia - fortunately for me, my new job was not at the tower itself, but at one of the BBI's smaller offices, scattered all across Riften City, as well as all across Skyrim, and all across the Federative States of Tamriel.

On my first day, I left home - that is, the apartment where I lived together with Mother and Marcus and which I called home for convention's sake - two hours in advance, in order to carefully explore what was about to become my usual route to work. The exploration revealed... I'd say it revealed a lot of grey. Grey pavement, grey buildings, grey trees - according to the books I had read for my ancient history course, Riften City and the area around it used to be a vibrant burst of gold this time of year, what with all the birch groves... but they, too, are now part of the past - grey-faced people in grey clothing hurrying down grey streets, hiding beneath their grey umbrellas from a sticky grey drizzle splattering down from the lead-grey sky. Too much grey - much too much grey for a mentally unstable young female who has colourful visions. And just as I was beginning to feel like tiny grain of salt sinking into a gigantic bowl of grey gruel, it came, as though in answer to my thoughts - the voice. Singing, softly, sadly, to the quiet accompaniment of a simple acoustic guitar,

_Sometimes you may feel_

_The rain will never cease,_

_Sometimes you may think_

_It's always been this way,_

_Sometimes you may fear_

_You'll never be at ease,_

_Your soul trapped_

_Among the shades of grey..._

_But the sun will come out again -_

_If you're patient enough to wait,_

_The sun will come out again -_

_If you're steadfast enough to cope,_

_The sun will come out again -_

_For it never is too late,_

_The sun will come out again -_

_If you teach your heart to hope..._

I swivelled round on the uncomfortably high heels of my newly bought office shoes - and as soon as I located the source of the sweet, melancholy sound, I dashed towards it like a starving man might dash to a stand with hot pies.

I had to elbow my way through a small crowd of casual onlookers to catch a glimpse of the singer. He looked much like the rest of the bunch - battered guitar, torn jeans, a second-hand jacket with its hood pushed right down to his eyes, obligatory long, unkempt hair. But his voice was quite unlike the voice of any other singer I had heard before. There was something about it, something almost indiscernible, too subtle to be described with words, like the delicate hint of strange, exotic spice in an otherwise familiar dish. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't put my finger on what it was exactly, but it didn't stop it from being there, stirring my senses with it inexplicable vagueness, making me strain my hearing and my mind till my head started aching. Preoccupied as I was with the mystery of the voice, I was still able to appreciate the words that it sung. They did not seem to belong to any of the songs I knew - and I knew many, for what better remedy is there for bothersome stepfathers than putting on your headphones and assaulting your own eardrums with throbbing waves of wild music? No, this song was completely new to me - perhaps he had composed it himself - and so strangely... _about _me... The first verse was a perfect description of my feelings, not just on this dreary day, but for most of my adult life; I couldn't wait till he finished with the chorus and started on the second one - but then...

'Hi there!' my vision was suddenly obscured by a young, neatly dressed, ample-bosomed Nord woman, with an upturned nose, a single blonde curl escaping artistically from beneath a grey (obviously) beret and a large roll of paper stuck beneath her arm; she seemed to have emerged out of nowhere and was now steadily dazzling me with the brilliance of her smile, which had too many teeth in it for my liking. 'You look _awfully_ like a girl I was in an Art class with, back at school! I remember she drew this _gorgeous_ portrait, which was given a fail grade for being _unrealistic_ - what was it called now... The, uh, _Psychic Monk?'_

'Psijic Monk,' I said curtly.

Her smile seemed to grow a few extra teeth. 'Oh, so you _are_ her! Gosh, I _am_ good with faces, aren't I? Not so good with names, though...'

'Lavinia Atrius,' I winced slightly as she bent over and planted a wet, perfume-reeking kiss on my cheek. 'And you are...'

'Hildi!' she introduced herself brightly. 'You might not recognize me - I've lost a lot of weight'.

I vaguely recollected a pink circular shape darting noisily across the classroom - and smiled, quite in spite of myself.

'So, Lav,' Hildi went on, thrusting her arm beneath mine with an air of unceremonious friendliness, 'What have you been doing with yourself all these years? Me, I am a designer now. Working in the advert dep for BBI - well, who doesn't work for the BBI these days? Actually, I am not really working there yet; it's more of a kind of internship... I do stuff for Dravin Marius's projects - you know, he is one of the best - and if he puts in a good word for me, they might give me a permanent job! Isn't that exciting?! Of course, I have to tie myself into knots just to make Dravin notice me...'

She clung on to me, her arm twisting round mine like the tentacle of an octopus - a good-natured, talkative octopus that dragged me away from the crowd, away from the mysterious singer... When I finally managed to shake Hildi off - not daring to utter a polite excuse, for a single word of mine triggered an avalanche of hers - he was already gone.

Office work wasn't half as bad as I had expected. It turned out to be some sort of massive coffee break, interrupted from time to time by dropping into a revolving chair to send a couple of meaningless emails to a couple of meaningless addresses - until I got tired of assaulting the local vending machine (because there are only this many candy bars you can eat) and took to staring at my desktop wallpaper. I had set it to be one of the default pictures I had dug up from the not too exciting depths of my office computer - another of those typical postcards from Riften City, showing the highlight of our picture gallery, the portrait of a hard-faced, dark-haired woman with eyes that pierced through you like two shards of ice. Maven Black-Briar, founder of the financial Empire, the woman who had laid the first cornerstone of Riften City as it is now, and one of the few personalities from ancient history that we were actually encouraged to learn about. It seemed that my little staring game with the distinguished old lady went a bit too far - or maybe I just wasn't used to so much sitting in front of the screen - because when the long- (and ardently) expected end of the workday came and I darted out, not waiting for any of my new colleagues, (they hadn't taken any notice of me throughout the day, and frankly, I am terrible at making friends) the evening sunlight made my eyeballs ache.

'You were right,' I muttered to myself. 'The sun _has_ come out again - only what use is it to me?'

And as though he had heard my question - just as he had read my thoughts and made the into a song - the vagrant musician crossed paths with me again; as I turned round the corner of a street, which the touch of the setting sun had not made any less grey - I saw him sitting on the edge of the pavement, biting ravenously into a burger, his face still concealed by a low-hanging curtain of hair. On the ground next to him, there was a back, in which he must have been collecting his tips. I went up to him, on tiptoe because I hated the ringing sound of my new high heels, bent over to throw in my handful of septims - and saw that apart from the money, there also were a several discs, self-recorded no doubt, thrown carelessly on the very bottom of the bag.

'I... I'd like to buy one of those,' I said falteringly, reaching out to take one of them. And just as my fingertips brushed against the scratched iridescent circle, the singer started and looked up at me.

Maybe the incredible amount of stressed-out, near-suicidal people wandering the streets these days isn't such a bad thing, after all - otherwise, my scream would have attracted much more unwanted attention. The singer's face looked exactly like one of my hallucinations - oval, high-cheekboned, with that peculiar goldenish tan... And his eyes... His eyes were deep pools of liquid amber; the eyes of an Altmer.


End file.
